High Five for Good Friday!

The upcoming weekend at home with my family has me all nostalgic about Easters gone by. Easter is always a big happening at our house -- on top of the bunnies, eggs and brunches, both my parents and I have a birthday within a week. So we use this weekend as a celebratory catchall (or, calorie fest, really). I kind of meant to do this all "Throwback Thursday" style yesterday, but I didn't my S together in time. (#typical).

So, just for funsies, here are some Easter shots from when I was a little fresher and cuter...

I'm the one on the right, my little nugget of a sister is on the left. One of us is better at egg hunting than the other. Or one of us just got a better nap that day. I really hope my kids aren't totally bald as long as I was. In this case, lets just pretend I was wearing an Easter egg for a hat. Kind of looks like I might be.

Alright, we're getting somewhere now, people. Not bald, but not quite the mullet days (I had a few questionable hair years in there, we'll be skipping over that). I hope my mom saved that precious little dress somewhere. I probably spilled all over it. Some things never change.

I wish it was still acceptable for me to wear socks on fancy occasions. They're so comfy. 26-year-old me wants to tell 4-year-old me that those posture habits will make me look fat in photos in the future. Still breaking that one...

Actual cheesery. I also assume that wasn't my mother's first choice for an easter outfit. I'm imagining something like ... "I'm wearing the blue socks, dammit. Try to stop me!" ... going down. Charming. It fascinates me that I used to be a small person but my face has stayed the same. I guess thats not all that shocking, but child to adult transition is a weird science thing to me.

Have a wonderful weekend full of family, friends, food, ya know, all the important "F" things. Well, not all of them. :)

Bring on the eggs and brunching, y'all! High five! Linking up:

Happy Happy Easter!

Friday. Is. Finally. Here. I've had a bit of a weird week getting back in the swing of things. After Peru and the melee of SXSW, I'm glad to be finally settling back into my routine. Evenings at home, exercising, poodle time ... it feels fabulous. But, right as all that's been happening, my work life sort of threw up all over my zen. I got new projects and jobs this week, which I generally love, but can a sister just take a breath? So, I'm unwinding with mindless internet news... ENJOY!

1. Beyonce's new song. Too weird?

It's completely badass and definitely worthy of Queen Bey, but it's a little weird to me. I'm going to love it like any thing else she produces (I'm looking at you, Blue Ivy Carter), but I'm not quite there yet. Her upcoming album, by the way, is titled Mrs. Carter. Ugh, SWOOON. In a strange and funny turn, Rush Limbaugh misinterpreted her new track as an ode to being a subservient wife, rather than a totally badass diva beeeotch. He's actually abhorrent. #idiot

2. Science Says: People get dogs.

A new study shows that people might just inherently understand canine emotions. Read all about the sciencey stuff here, but people were asked to identify different doggy feelings and got it right ALOT. Additionally, the people with less dog experience identified the emotions most accurately, hinting that we just naturally get them. This can only be further evidence that dogs are much, much better than cats. Right?

3. Quote of the week:

"I feel a sisterhood emerging around me. I'm less threatening now that I'm 40 and not 26-with-an-Oscar. There's a sense of love and support. I feel really lucky." -- Egomaniac Gwyneth Paltrow

Really Gwyneth? Really? I feel like she's always just tooting her own horn about whatever she just learned to cook, or her Oscar or her fabulous best friends. I'm glad her tough road as an Oscar winner and superfamous person is winding down with love and support from her 'sisterhood'. GAG.

4. A man founded a religion based on the Big Lebowski

"Dudeism" is a thing. It's a grassroots religious movement based on "The Dude" of The Big Lebowski. If you haven't seen it, go now, run don't walk, and watch it. I'm a huge nerd for the flick (good quote mashup here, very unsafe for work). Anywho, this new religioun, which seems to be only kind of a joke, is based on the movie, Tao of Lao Tzu and Epicurus...those last two are legit religious figures, BTW. The founder says, "Following Dudeism helps you to keep in mind what's important in life, what actually makes people happy instead of what makes them insane ... simple pleasures are best and that less is actually more." It actually doesn't sound too bad. Kind of makes me want a White Russian right now.

5. Ryan Gosling taking a a break from acting. GASP!

Yep, that's right. He's leaving our screens temporarily. He says, "I need a break from myself as much as I imagine the audience does." Now that's just stupid. STUPID. He'll appear in one more movie, The Place Beyond the Pines, with his real-life girlfriend Eva Mendes (#luckyB) then take a hiatus. UGH. He better go Clooney it up in Darfur or something and make this worth our while. If you need me, I'll be watching The Notebook repeatedly until he comes back.

6. Just to send you into the weekend right, enjoy this video of Miley Cyrus:

I've been over her since she started. But I can't look away. I really can't. I'm like oddly entranced by it. If I get famous, I aspire to throw on a onesie and entrance people. I guess she's engaged again, too. #apparentlynotoverher

Have an entrancing weekend! Put on a unicorn onesie and get down with your bad self!

Happy Thursday! Now that Spring has officially sprung, I'm observing that all my friends and their husbands are blossoming like Easter lillies. By that I mean, people are reproducing, like serious baby fever. Babies and pregos are everywhere in my life. My Instgram has kind of exploded with baby pics. Sometimes I get the itch, then I realize that photo swooning is plenty for me for the moment.

Here are my favorite little lovebugs as of late:

Rhodes

Rhodes' dad is a good pal and old carpool mate. I cannot get enough of his smiley little face all the time. His mom once posted... "Ok we get it, you're cute." True dat.

Mason

Mason's mom is a sorority/college pal and a supermom for sure. I'm addicted to her photos of this little dreamboat. His face always looks a little mischievous to me, which I think a kid of mine one day will have.

Madeline

Madeline's mom is one of my oldest friends in life. Madeline is a real freshy and just wanted to snuggle when I met her for the first time. Ok, I accept. If she insists.

Also, I have TONS of friends with their little nuggets still cookin'! Also, it seems like a feet-centric pregnancy announcement is so hot right now ...

Jenny and Dave

Jenny is my closest buddy with a bun in the oven. She and her husband are both Crossfit-ers and really big into fitness, paleo and the like, so their little sporty announcement is perfect and so presh. I'm going to spoil the shit out of that little thing.

Megan and Paul

Megan also is a great blog friend who's been posting about he prego journey thus far. Check her out!

Lauren and Rand

Lauren is an old high school buddy and the first of that little clique of mine to start the baby thing. I have a feeling her little tot will be as picture perfect as her and her husband and their home.

On top of that, there are like six more babies and pregos that I can think of in different corners of my world right now. It feels so weird. When did I become an adult enough to have friends with babies? Am I even an adult enough to have friends with babies?

What does this mean for me? Presents. Tons of miniature-sized things for my mom friends. Hi, can anyone say baby TOM's? Look out bitches, I'm in love with baby TOMs and I don't care what you say. You're gettin' 'em.

Hello all! It's the first day of Spring and I'm PSYCHED about it. Springtime stuff -- bunnies, Easter, candy, bright colors -- popping up in stores (and honestly around the internet) means my favorite season is coming back around. It also means it's almost my birthday. Woot! Woot!

So, to get in the spirit this morning I've been doing lots of Pinterest dreaming of my favorite Spring time things:

Baby Animals

Pretty Wearable Stuff

I'm feeling the need to do a little shopping this weekend. I need to get into Spring mode with my wardrobe. As soon as I do some much-needed closet purging, I think I may head out and do some debit damage. These items would be ideal:

The Inca Trail

In the middle of our 9ish days in Peru, we scheduled a three-night and four-day hike of the Inca Trail. (Just a little bit of history: the Inca Trail is a treacherous, but beautiful mountain trail that the Incas took when they were trying to escape from the Spanish conquistadors to Machu Picchu city.) On the advice of some friends who had done it, we signed up to go with a tour group. The tour company provided all the camping gear, guides, food for the three days and porters to carry lots of our stuff.

So in hiking boots and zip off pants, we embarked.

Here are some random scenes from along the way:

The scenery was just absurdly beautiful. The Andes mountains were like nothing I'd ever seen. This kind of gives a sense of how just crazy mountainous things were. We were super high up and and really rocky/uneven terrain.

As for the actual hiking part, I'll admit it was hard, real hard. Particularly the second day. We had to climb to the tallest summit of the journey before lunchtime then had 5ish more hours after lunch. There was some dark moments that day. Here's our whole hiking group at the top of the peak:

Camping, oh there was camping:

All the dudes in the blue in the top picture are our porters. They carried the entire camp, all the food and some of our personal stuff down the ENTIRE TRAIL. They also did it at what seemed like inhuman speed in crappy shoes. It was mind blowing. Our little camp was quite the oasis after a long day of trekking.

And just for funsies, enjoy these selfies from along the trail. I went on a very un-like me selfie spree apparently:

I was dirty and cold for a lot of it, but mostly happy. :)

Machu EFFING Picchu

When we finally arrived at the city it was actually alot more awesome than I thought it would be. Not only was it so much larger than I expected, very little of it is blocked off. Like you can really explore all around the thing. There were a weird lack of rules. We had a few hours there to take a tour and explore on our own. I could have stayed there so much longer...

And thats around 1% of the photos that were taken. Seriously. The whole thing was just very mysterious and magestic. The hike was worth it, mostly. I'm not sure if I'd do it again, but would go back to Machu Picchu in an instant.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and really cannot say enough good things about getting to have a girls getaway. I feel like we are all growing up and the chances to do stuff like this with them will just get smaller every year that goes by. Bless their sweet hearts for dealing with me at certain parts. #bestbuds.

Im really dragging my feet on the rest of the Peru recap. I think part of me wants to just keep on thinking I'm a little bit in vacation mode. So, on that note, can I get a ...

High five for Friday! I made it through a crazy work and SXSW week!

I feel bratty even saying this but, usually I hate, hate the annual rigamarole that is SXSW festival in Austin. It's crowded, there are tons of lines and normal people like me can't get in to see the good stuff. Though exhausting, this week has been AWESOME so far ...

Moon Taxi

A friend's band here from Nashville, TN. They had a great crowd and were super great live. We're hoping to catch more of them this weekend.

Alabama Shakes

The Ginger used a hot high school connection to get us in as VIPs. We got to sit mega close and rub elbows with the band on their bus before and after the show. That Ginger, what a guy.

Willie Nelson's Ranch with Jim James

Some friends invited to this super cool event and it was a blast. It was out in the Texas hill country at Willie Nelson's PRIVATE ranch. Free beer and the headliner was Jim James. What else do you really need?

Maybe I'm warming up to SXSW. I might change my tune after tomorrow. I'm planning to hit the streets and bop around all day. Historically, its taken me like a solid 30 minutes to get pissed off at the crowds and hipster idiots. I'm going to try to keep my good SXSW juju going.

So, high five for me not dying this week. Double high five for me not dying and being in pretty good spirits!

So, I'm back. It's been a hectic couple of days of re-adjusting, catching up on work and getting in the groove of a new computer (brand new Macbook!) for me. But, now, the dust has settled and I'm having vacation daydreams all over the place. Really wish I was back in exploration mode. Here's a quick run-down of our trip:

Two Dreamy Days in Cusco

Cusco is a small city, but the closest big-ish place to the Machu Picchu site. We planned two days there before our hike to explore and get used to the altitude. (A note about the altitude: we pre-medicated for it with prescriptions, so I really didn't feel any serious sickness, but the medicine has the side-effect of being an extreme diuretic. That means pee alot. ALOT, alot. In a developing country, that's no picnic.) I loved, loved loved Cusco. It was crawling with culture, historical sites and just generally had the feel of a classic, old, European city. Here are just a fewfave shots:

The Plaza de Armas in downtown Cusco

One of around a trillion open air craft markets we perused.

This is how they buy meat there. Deterring, to say the least.

Oh ya know, just a casual street llama.

After two great days in Cusco, we headed off on our three-night and four-day hike to Machu Picchu. We'll get into that in the next installment of this little recap for dramatic effect. Use your imagination on this pieced-together timeline.

After the hike, we hopped a plane to Lima, Peru, where our flight was leaving back home. We had two-ish days there to see the sights.

Adventuring in Lima

Lima was really just a big city, which we'd all of course experienced before. We weren't aware that it's a GIANT metropolis of 10 million people Our first day there we really just had time to eat dinner. We opted for an expensive fancy meal after our trek, and it was like pure ambrosia. We walked ALOT in lima and explored the streets, some ruins and the old city center. Some photos from along the way:

Our hotel was in the Miraflores district, right by the beach. That white abyss out there is the Pacific Ocean. It was so weirdly foggy you could have just fallen right into it.

These are random ruins smack dab in the middle of the city. Huaca Pucllana is over 1,500 years old and still and actively excavated site. Until relatively recently, locals used it for motorcross. WTF? It was interesting. I got sunburnt as complete hell.

A Lima-an specialty is fresh ceviche. We ate it and it was fabulous. Drinks necessary. Also, I'm burnt, so so burnt. (Sorry, mom, you did teach me better that, but the damn nearby equator had me all off game.)

Old center of Lima. That's their Governor's (President's) house. Up close they had these guards with swords that did a very Buckingham-esque changing of the guards ceremony. They were also dudes with machine guns all around it. Scary.

Old center of Lima at night. The crowds are fathered for Worldwide Women's Day (thanks for that by the way). Though it was beautiful at night, we had to get out of there to avoid the scary other-country kidnappers that felt like they were lurking around.

Thats really all for now, our experience in the towns of Peru was lovely. There was lots of airporting and transit involved, but I thoroughly enjoyed the sights and shopping in both places. I bought so much llama/Alpaca crap its just silly. Let's just say I own a scrunchie for the first time in 15 years. I might have gone a little nuts.

... more -- the details of the ridiculousness that is a four-day hike -- coming soon. XO